Kodiak couple prepare to say goodbye to their Quonset hut homeA Kodiak woman who has lived in a Bells Flats Quonset hut for more than four decades is preparing to say goodbye to the home in which she holds record. After arriving as a hippie to work in the canneries, squatting in and eventually purchasing her Quonset hut, marrying her husband, becoming a snowbird and living in Arizona in the winter, Rose Cobis is finally leaving behind her Quonset hut for good. Her hut was on...

Wounded vets in Kodiak for camaraderie and healingIt started as a simple idea from a former Kodiak resident. Now, 10 years later, that idea has turned into a bigger annual event supported by at least 35 local businesses and organizations, more than a dozen individuals and 16 Kodiak skippers. About a dozen wounded veterans began arriving in Kodiak Thursday for a nine-day excursion that includes fishing, bear watching and hiking, through Saturday, Aug. 8. The local...

Garden tour set for weekendKodiak’s gardens will be in full bloom this weekend for the annual Kodiak Garden Tour. For one longtime participant, the 2015 garden tour will be her last. “I want everybody to come because it’s my last year,” said Rose Cobis, a Bells Flats gardener. “It’s your last chance to be in the garden, and the garden is fabulous because the winter was so mellow that everything got really big.” Cobis’ garden is full of flow...

COASTAL FORAGER: Harbinger of fall has many uses Have you ever wondered while you were hiking how fireweed came to be named? The appellation is perfect, really. It comes from fireweed’s ability to thrive again quickly in areas decimated by fire. The plant was one of the first to re-establish itself after the bombing of London in World War II and following the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980, writes Edna Vizgirdas in her article “Fireweed” on the USDA web it...

POLICE BLOTTERJuly 15 At 2:40 a.m., police conducted a security check on Rezanof Drive East. At 2:47 a.m., police conducted a bar check on Marine Way. At 2:48 a.m., a 911 caller reported a bear sighting in the 1300 block of Selief Lane. There was evidence of a bear but it was gone when police arrived. At 2:49 a.m., police admonished a driver on Rezanof Drive East for careless driving and having an unilluminated license plate. A...

COURT REPORTRobin Chya pleaded guilty to harassment in the second degree. Chya was sentenced to 60 days in jail. Michael Katelnikoff pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated. Katelnikoff was sentenced to 45 days in jail (42 suspended) and fined $3,000 ($1,500 suspended) and had his license revoked for 90 days and ordered to use an ignition interlock device for six months after regaining the license and required to comply w...

Life changes, reaching 80 seen as miracleThere is a God.” Bob Bunsey is sure of it. One of the reasons for his faith is that he made it to his 80th birthday. On Aug. 21, he and his wife, Erlinda, will be celebrating 30 years of marriage. They were married two weeks after they met in Erlinda’s homeland of the Philippines. Bob had to go through some very dark valleys before he became the perfect answer to Erlinda’s prayer. In his past life — or rather, exi...

Let’s vaccinate our kids and address the real threats to Kodiak’s youthsA guest columnist in a July 30 edition does the families of Kodiak a disservice with his article, “Questioning the safety and necessity of vaccines.” Sure, mixed in with the conspiracy theories, and selective, misleading and false statements, are a few kernels of truth. However, abandoning vaccination, which the author seems to condone, will only cause unnecessary suffering. It is true that safe drinking water, de...

Goats give glad sign I’m still sore, three days later. But there’s nothing like a five-mile hike (my fitness app tells me it was over seven miles) to prove that I’m out of shape and need to get back to the gym. Monday after lunch, a sponsee of mine and I set out on Termination Trail to got up to the point, and to her altar hidden in the cracks of a rock. She was going to take her third step in an anonymous program of recovery in which...

Kodiak High School graduates gather for 50th reunionThese elders — many of them grandmas and grandpas — were kids back in the 1960s when Kodiak was in step with the rest of the world with new dances, flat-top, fuzzy and puffy hair-dos, Nehru jackets, bikinis and mini-skirts. These aging folks became lawyers, fishermen, Native leaders, artists, teachers, wives, businessmen, mechanics, laborers, pastors and Hebrew scholars. These were the Kodiak High School graduates...